Chap. 69.] BEANS. 447 



CHAP. 68. BREAD : TWENTY-ONE EEMEDIES. 



Bread, ^ too, which forms our ordinary nutriment, possesses 

 medicinal properties, almost without number. Aj)plied with 

 water and oil, or else rose-oil, it softens abscesses ; and, with 

 hydromel, it is remarkably soothing for indurations. It is pre- 

 scribed with wine to produce delitescence, or when a defluxion 

 requires to be checked ; or, if additional activity is required, 

 with vinegar. It is employed also for the morbid defluxions of 

 rheum, known to the Greeks as '' rheumatismi," and for 

 bruises and sprains. For all these purposes, however, bread 

 made with leaven, and known as " autopyrus,"^® is the best. 



It is applied also to whitlows, in vinegar, and to callosities of 

 the feet. Stale bread, or sailors'-bread,^'' beaten up and baked 

 again, arrests looseness of the bowels. For persons who wish to 

 improve the voice, dry bread is very good, taken fasting ; it 

 is useful also as a preservative against catarrhs. The bread 

 called " sitanius," and which is made of three-month^' wheat, 

 applied with honey, is a very efficient cure for contusions of 

 the face and scaly eruptions. White bread, steeped in hot or 

 cold water, furnishes a very light and wholesome aliment for 

 patients. Soaked in wine, it is applied as a poultice for 

 swellings of the eyes, and used in a similar manner, or with 

 the addition of dried myrtle, it is good for pustules on the 

 head. Persons troubled with palsy are recommended to take 

 bread soaked in water, fasting, immediately after the bath. 

 Burnt bread modifies the close smell of bedrooms, and, used 

 in the strainers,"^ it neutralizes bad odours in wine. 



CHAP. 69. BEANS : SIXTEEN ILEMEDIES. 



Beans,'" too, furnish us with some remedies. Parched whole, 

 and thrown hot into strong vinegar, they are a cure for grip- 



25 Bread, as made at the present day, is but Httle used in modern medi- 

 cine, beyond being tlie basis of many kinds of poultices. A decoction of 

 bread with laudanum, is kno\vn in medicine, Fee says, as the "white 

 decoction." 



36 " Unseparated from the bran." 



2' Probably like the military bread, made of the coarsest meal, and un- 

 formented. 



3s See B. xviii. c. 12. 39 "Saccos." See B. xiv. c. 28. 



*^ Sie B. xviii. c. 30. Bean meal is but little used in modern medicine, 

 but most that Pliny here says is probably well founded ; with the exception, 

 however, of his statement as to its employment for diseases of the chest. 



